I think you did quite well.
To those who think our Founders were motivated by a concern regarding "discrimination", I would simply point to the Thirteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Constitution; freeing one class of persons from slavery and another from being disenfranchised.
The Constitution required Amendment because there is no doubt whatever that our Founders did not recognize slaves as freemen or women as being suitable voters. That our Founders might have discriminated against some babies because of the nationality of their parents with respect to who may become President, seems rather obvious.
Thanks, WT. Your points are excellent. They will not impact the ‘don’t you dare discriminate against anchor babies’ crowd, however. This is not a cool, calm rational discussion for them, in which facts and logic carry the day. This is fundamentally emotional, because it’s about the essence of who they are. I.e.: they are the morally superior non-discriminators, battling the xenophobes who hate innocent babies. As such, no fact or logical argument will penetrate their self-righteous carapace. They must keep the non-discrimination principle inviolate, and everything else will simply have to fall—or be forced—into place around it.
Lost in the minutia of their legalism is the abject lunacy of their position. They are arguing that the Framers put in the NBC restriction specifically to prevent discrimination against the offspring of foreign enemies. Iow, there is no other rational for the Framers using such specific language in this one place unless it was to codify who can and cannot be prevented from occupying the WH. The non-discrimination crowd is saying the Framers worried that if one of our enemies—say King George—managed to sire a child that happened to be born on US soil, people would discriminate against the offspring. So they inserted NBC to make sure the children of King George and any other foreign enemy could assume the helm of the new Republic, providing daddy arranged an American birth.
This is batdung crazy. Absolutely certifiable. More than anything, though, it’s a tribute to the degree to which liberalism has taken over the US MSM and our classrooms. It has become the default worldview even for many who don’t consider themselves liberal.
For instance, take this scenario. A few generations back, you ask a WWII vet if a ‘natural born US citizen’ means: ‘the half foreign son or daughter of a foreign enemy who happened to be born on US soil’, they would look at you like you had both loose screws and horns/a pointed tail. I.e.: an evil lunatic.
A few scant generations later, and the people who believe the Framers proactively protected the ‘right’ of foreign enemies to sire future POTUS occupy [in their own minds] the moral and intellectual high ground. I.e.: t engaged in a noble fight against jingoistic wingnuts, and it’s one they have no intention of losing.
This is the very essence of modern liberalism. It takes an absurd, even insane principle [such as moral equivalence] and not only defends it as a given, but paints anyone who challenges it as ignorant and racist. Anyone who’s ever tried to talk a liberal down from this intellectually suicidal bridge knows it simply cannot be done. If they’re wrong about discrimination being the ultimate/only real sin, then their entire world view falls. They can’t go there, so anger and increasing irrationality are their responses to challenges.
The only effective way to claw back from this madness would be to eradicate the worst of leftwing nutbaggery from our public educational system. No Republicans are even mentioning this possibility, so it looks pretty bleak. Meanwhile, the non-discrimination NBC crowd goes merrily on their way, arguing that Obama is exactly who the Framers wanted, when they penned their restrictive clause.
Insanity: there’s no reasoning w it.